Crucible

Lately, I’ve been extremely tired almost all the time.  I’ve been tired because I’ve been trying to carry burdens that were not mine to carry.  Those of you who know me understand that like many people, I struggle with co-dependency. The result has been undue stress on my body, mind, and spirit.  The Holy Spirit kept trying to tell me that these burdens were His, and did I REALLY want His job? 

 

I was so exhausted that I was becoming ill…ill mentally, emotionally, and eventually, physically.  It remained that way, spiralling downward until I made the choice to give those things over to Him and abdicate responsibility for the outcomes.  It has been  HARD!  It’s like a nursing mother trying to get her child to self-soothe themselves to sleep.  She stands outside the door of the nursery, biting her finger as she listens to her child’s piteous cries for her,   everything inside her wanting to rush in and scoop him up to comfort him, yet knowing that this transition is crucial for the child’s proper development.  

 

Humans never mature until they learn to find things for themselves, ask God for what they need, and discover that Jesus IS faithful, that He WILL be there for them to depend upon, that He WILL supply ALL their need.  They are not alone, yet they feel alone.  It doesn’t have to be that way.  Sometimes God will allow a person to have what I call “crucible” experiences, stripping everything away that person has depended upon in the world, making it so hot that they melt on the inside, feeling as though they are going to die.  He does this so that a number of things will happen.  One, they become desperate enough to throw themselves on Him, or they give up.  Two, the dross inside them will be driven off.  Three, they see after it is all over with precisely why they had to go through those experiences to become a vessel fit for use.  Otherwise, they would be useless slag, contaminated by the worldliness in themselves, ineffectual. 

 

I’ve been through a few crucibles in my own life…and eventually I have come to understand that in my weakness He is strong specifically BECAUSE of those “negative” traits that He has and continues to sanctify in me.  I am totally convinced that He can take the blackness in my soul and turn it as white as snow, transform it and me by me allowing HIM to renew my mind.  He accomplishes this without me lifting a finger to do anything but trust Him, falling backwards into His chest and arms.  I am washed clean in His blood.  Then I can see what He wants me to do and go after it.

 

If He can change me, He can change anyone…I will give my brothers and sisters into His hands.  I do not want to interfere with His parenting them; it is not my right to do so.  In fact, if I do step in where He has not told me to go, my actions might actually prolong their suffering in the crucible times.  He has made each of us special; He wants us to revel in His joy and draw our strength from it.  Allow His plans to unfold in His way, even when it looks skewed or nothing like the end product, so that the enemy cannot steal that joy.  

 

         ~Denise